As the demand for semiconductor devices continues to grow, there is a constant need to increase manufacturing throughput without sacrificing device quality. Some methods include an apparatus for treating, and/or cleaning the semiconductor wafer as it is passed into a vacuum transfer chamber and/or a semiconductor process chamber. Such methods include passing the wafer through a curtain of a process gas or gases as it is transferred into a semiconductor process chamber. These methods can reduce the processing time for manufacturing a semiconductor device.
However, conventional apparatus used to perform these methods do not uniformly treat and/or clean the surface of the substrate. This uneven treatment, and/or cleaning of the substrate surface can result in poorly fabricated semiconductor devices that may not function properly.
Thus, there is a need for an improved apparatus for treating, and/or cleaning the surface of semiconductor substrates more uniformly.